Internet Surveys

Here is an excerpt from the ‘As you like it’ Blog. It describes a poor survey done on AOL.

If Comedy Central were doing a skit on survey design, this would be it. If a slot machine were as rigged as this survey, the gaming commission would shut down the casino. If a college student designed a survey that was this lame, the school would be justified in having the kid flogged in the campus center. This isn’t a survey, it’s an advertisement for AOL and Cookie Magazine.

This survey is so savagely incompetent that I am in awe at how many different media outlets covered it. The headline at the top of the first page of the survey reads in large bold type ARE YOU GETTING ENOUGH? ANY? And take a look at the pictures that go along with the questions:

You’ve got to love these neutral images that were attached to each survey question!

This is the survey equivalent of walking into a voting booth and there’s an air-brushed poster of John McCain kissing a baby above the voting machine.

How would you feel if you had cancer and the doctors determined the efficacy of the drug they were about to give you from a survey that was designed like this? What amazes me most about this survey is that they were only able to manipulate 34% of the “wives” who took it to say they had cheated on their husbands!

Look, I honestly can’t tell you if 34% of wives cheat on their husbands, or if it’s more like 90%. But neither can the people at Cookie Magazine or AOL based on this dog. Maybe I don’t get worked up enough about what the average housewife does when her panties are down around her ankles. What I do get crazy about is when an advertisement tries to sell itself as science.